The warehouse turned into controlled chaos, bodies moving through the dark, fists connecting with bone, the hard sounds of men who had been fighting in places like this since they were old enough to close their hands.Logan stayed behind Victor until he saw the second group. Four men moving along the east wall, using the shadows as cover, heading directly toward Victor's blind side.They were faster than the first wave and their spacing was military.Logan intercepted them before they reached the corner. The first man swung at his head.Logan stepped inside the arc, caught the arm, and redirected the man's momentum into the second attacker behind him.Both went down.The third pulled a knife. Logan disarmed him in two movements and put him on the floor with a joint lock that made the man scream before his knees touched the concrete. The fourth turned and ran.Logan didn't chase him. He had already seen what he needed.Halfway through the fight, he had noticed hand signals being given

Victor stared at Logan. The muscles in his neck were corded and his breathing was heavy and every instinct he had was screaming at him to move, to hunt, to find Rafael Duran and make him understand what happens when someone enters his territory and touches his people. But Logan's reasoning was a wall that his anger couldn't break through, no matter how hard he threw himself against it."Then what?" Victor's voice was barely controlled. "I just stand here and pretend nothing happened? Pretend three of my men didn't sell me out like dogs trading scraps for a pat on the head?""You act like the betrayal never happened." Logan held his gaze. "You go back to your routine. You run your network the same way you ran it yesterday. And you wait for Rafael to make his next move, because the only thing more dangerous than a man who knows your weakness is a man who thinks he knows your weakness when you've already changed the game."Victor exhaled through his teeth. He hated it. The hatred was wri

Hayley found Daniel standing beneath the awning of a closed hardware store on the east side of the city. He was thinner than the last time she had seen him, and the collar of his jacket was turned up against a wind that wasn't cold enough to justify it. He was hiding inside his own clothes."Where have you been?" Hayley stopped three feet from him. Her voice carried the kind of anger that only exists between people who once trusted each other. "You disappeared again. No call. No message. Nothing. You vanished like a rat crawling back into a hole the moment someone turns on the lights."Daniel looked left, then right, then behind her. His eyes moved across the street with the rapid calculation of a man who had been checking his surroundings long before this conversation started."Someone has been searching for me." Daniel's voice was low enough that Hayley had to step closer to hear it. "For months. The people looking for me are connected to the old Imperial records. The ones from year

"Personnel files. Financial authorizations. Access logs for a restricted section of the building that most employees didn't even know existed." Daniel looked at her. "One of the employees found the deletion. He started digging. He found a second set of records hidden behind the ones that had been erased. Records showing that someone had been using the restricted section for years without authorization.""And then he disappeared." Hayley's voice was flat."Both of them disappeared." Daniel nodded. "The first employee vanished three weeks after he started investigating. The second one found the same evidence two months later. She disappeared within days."Hayley's face went still. "The access card I found. The one from the old files."Daniel looked at her and nodded slowly. "That card belonged to one of them. It was used to enter the restricted section shortly before both employees disappeared. You weren't carrying an old company badge, Hayley. You were carrying evidence of what happene

One of the traitors, Dominguez, was on his knees near the storage racks. His face was swollen and his hands were bound behind his back. When Victor turned toward him, the defiance that had been in his eyes earlier was completely gone. In its place was the desperate terror of a man who had just realized that the rope he had been pulling on was attached to something much heavier than he could carry."Victor, please." Dominguez's voice cracked. "I made a mistake. Rafael told me you were losing control. He told me the network was falling apart and that the only way to survive was to get ahead of the collapse. I believed him. I was stupid. Please. Give me another chance."Victor stared at him. The silence stretched for five seconds. Ten. Fifteen. Long enough for Dominguez to start believing that the next sound he heard would be his own bones breaking."Get up." Victor's voice was flat. "Leave. Go home. Don't contact anyone in my network. Don't call anyone connected to Rafael. If I find out